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INDEPENDENT SPENDING IN THE 2018 CONGRESSIONAL GENERAL ELECTIONS UP FROM SAME TIME IN 2016

Increases Focused Mostly on House Races; Party Expenditures Dominate in Both Chambers; Details Available on CFI’s General Election IE Tool

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Independent expenditures (IEs) reported to the Federal Election Commission for general election House and Senate races are up by $26 million from the same time in 2016, based on a Campaign Finance Institute (CFI) analysis of data supplied by the Federal Election Commission. This parallels CFI's analysis of increased IEs in the primaries, released earlier this month. Detailed data on all races with independent expenditures, and on the organizations making the IEs, are available, and updated daily on CFI’s website via these links: House | Senate | Spenders.

House v. Senate

Breaking down spending for the House and Senate shows a change from the last two election cycles. For the 2018 general election the emphasis has shifted away from the Senate toward a closer parity between the two chambers. Spending in House races is up 94% from the same time two years ago, rising from $102 million to $200 million, while expenditures in Senate races has dropped from $299 million to $227 million.

Spenders

Spending in both House and Senate races was dominated by national party committees and organizations associated with the party leadership. These include the Congressional Leadership Fund and Senate Leadership Fund on the Republican side, and the House Majority PAC and SMP/Majority Forward* for the Democrats. Combined, these groups represented 71% of all IEs in the House and 54% in the Senate.

The Campaign Finance Institute, a division of the National Institute on Money in Politics, is the nation’s pre-eminent think tank for objective, non-partisan research on money in politics in U.S. federal and state elections. CFI’s original work is published in scholarly journals as well as in forms regularly used by the media and policy making community. Statements made in its reports do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Institute on Money in Politics' Directors or financial supporters.